All Business
by freddylloyd
Summary: An unknown assassin gunning for a three-hundred-pound crime lord who’s holed up in an apartment building full of kids? Just another night for Robin since he moved to Blüdhaven.


**All Business**

Friday night in Blüdhaven. I'm squatting on a roof over the back of the Tribella pawnshop, waiting for a part-time employee, full-time loser named Chickie Blaisdell to sneak out for a cigarette. And for this I skipped Homecoming?

It's 11:30 when Chickie finally leaves the desk unattended. I wait till he's concentrating on his lighter and then say, "Hey."

He jumps and almost burns his nose. "Jeez, kid!" He looks up. "What're you hanging around here for? You're bad for business."

I rappel down to the top of the doorframe. "You were glad to see me last month when you had a shotgun in your face."

"Yeah, and two weeks ago I gave you a tip about Mickey Jay bringing in those diamonds," Chickie says. "So we're even."

"You don't think much of your life if you think it's worth one snatch-and-grabber." I put on my Batman growl. "You and me, Chickie—we're together for the long haul. So what do you see going down _now_?"

"Nothing, kid." He takes a long drag on his cigarette. "Nothing."

I hang, not moving.

Finally, Chickie mutters, "Double-L's crew needs money."

"So tell me more."

"This week, we took in four Rolexes, three chains, and a plasma TV. All from Double-L's captains. Actually, from their ladies, but everyone knows who they are. And three days ago Cappy Joe himself brought in one of his gold teeth for the metal value."

"I thought he looked different," I say. Actually, I'd never seen Cappy Joe in my life—just his mug shot.

Chickie's warmed up now. "My cousin, he works for Haney's Used Cars? He says Dee-Diego traded in his Lexus for a Hyundai and cash. The red Lexus, you know?"

"I know." I've seen that red Lexus around town—it was hard to miss. "So the Double-L crew's business is down?"

As soon as I ask that, I know it's stupid. Double-L controls drugs, prostitution, protection, fences, and almost all other street crime in the Teens and Twenties blocks—what Nightwing used to call the Freezing Range. That business is _never_ down.

Maybe Double-L's planning to move into warmer neighborhoods, I think, and his captains are raising capital. Maybe his business is so good he's attracting competitors, and he wants more firepower. Maybe red Lexuses just aren't fashionable anymore.

"I'll check it out," I tell Chickie, and start to reel myself back up to the roof.

Chickie calls, "We even now, kid?"

"Nope, we're still in business. I'll be checking in regularly."

Sad thing is, Chickie really is one of my best pals in Blüdhaven. It's not easy making friends in this town.

•••

As I take the rooftop route down to the Freezing Zone, I dial Barbara on my radio. "Do you have anything new on Double-L and his crew? Why they suddenly want cash?"

The Oracle voice comes back, sounding completely different from Barbara and yet so like her inflections that I can almost see her lips moving. "Checking data for Lloyd Maddison and associates." Of course she knows Double-L's real name. And of course she lets me know she knows.

I don't like Barbara to think I haven't done my homework, too. So, as I zipline across the big intersection at Gardner, I say, "I know Double-L stands for Livin' Large. The guy's six-six, three-fifty, right?"

"When his diet's working. But the buffet table's not the only way Maddison lives large. He has a whole apartment building on 19th."

"Number 207," I say before Barbara can tell me. "I'm on my way there now."

"Yes, your dot's on my screen. Maddison keeps the top floor for himself, and the rest of the building for his ladies."

"Ladies?" I repeat. "How many?"

"My tabulation of birth certificates says he's had children by fourteen women, eight of them listed as living in that building."

Wow. "Fourteen kids?"

"No. Fourteen women, thirty-nine kids. Most of them probably in 207. Maddison sees himself as a big-hearted family man."

"I'm touched." I reach the roof of number 210, across the street. Both buildings are five stories tall. I scan 207. It looks like any other tenement on the block, except all the windows have steel guards across them—to keep little kids from falling out, I guess.

I pull out my binoculars and begin to scan window by window. I can see several figures moving around on the fifth floor, only a couple of silhouettes below—I guess all those kids are in bed.

"Hmm," says Barbara.

"Hmm what?"

"I'm looking at the Odd Jobs bulletin board. It's like a help-wanted for criminals."

"Craig's List for crime? You've got to tell me the URL."

"It's not on the web, Robin. Anyway, two months ago someone posted $30,000 for a hit in Blüdhaven. A crime lord who never leaves his home base. No names, but that profile fits your guy."

"Thirty?" I say. "Isn't that high for a neighborhood crime lord? Or are they paying by the pound?"

"Maddison's a hard guy to reach, remember."

Yeah, I guess he's not a good target for someone new to the business.

"The way Odd Jobs works, whoever asked for that hit had to put the starting price into a Zandian account up front. So the $30,000 was solid. That ad stayed up for seven weeks—no takers. Then eight days ago, it disappeared."

"And right after that, Double-L's captains started to raise cash by pawning their best stuff. You think his gang was watching the Odd Jobs board?"

"I see four IPs from Blüdhaven logged on right now."

Jeez, I wish I had Barbara's system. To take my mind off that, I scan the roofs around 207 for lookouts or snipers.

"So maybe," I think aloud, "Double-L saw the ad disappear and figured someone's coming after him. He knew he needed more guns and muscle, so he sent out his captains to raise the cash to buy it. Anyone on that board now asking for more firepower in Blüdhaven?"

Barbara pauses just long enough to make me realize that was a silly question. "You're in a seller's market there, Robin. There's _always_ someone asking. Talent can name its price."

Yeah, that was my new home town.

"I can poke around for more details of the Maddison job," Barbara says. "But I don't know if I'll find anything."

I tuck my binoculars back in their padded pocket.

"Robin? What are you thinking?"

"'Thirty-nine kids,' you said. Most of them across the street. If someone's coming after Double-L right now, and he's hiring extra gunmen, those kids could get caught in the middle."

•••

So I end up on top of 207, peering into the fifth-storey windows with my foldout periscope. There are men counting cash, playing videos, arguing, comparing pistols. Not as many of them as I expect, though. And none is six-six, over three-fifty.

I figure Double-L may be downstairs, visiting one of his ladies. So I rappel down between the windows, peering left and right. Lots of shades with no lights behind them—kids' bedrooms, I guess. A couple of windows are leaking light on the third floor, so I swing over to one.

It's a kitchen. Young woman in a robe, baby wrapped in a pink blanket fussing in her arms. She takes a bottle from the microwave, swirls it, shakes a drop onto her arm. Baby follows the bottle with big brown eyes. Still no sign of—

Clang! BLAM! Something smacks my right side.

Move, Robin, move! Let out ten more feet of cord to drop fast. Swing around the corner of the building. Climb two storeys to get above the shooter.

The baby's crying again. More lights go on. Men shout from the top floor.

"I'm handling it!" roars a deep voice. The men shut up. The voice must be Double-L himself.

The right side of my back is stinging like I slept on hornets. But it's all on the surface—nothing got through my armor. On the other hand (or arm), I scraped my left elbow landing against the side of the apartment house. The night's first blood.

Which brings me back to my business here. I fumble for my periscope and poke it an inch around the corner of the building. I see a huge dark shape half out a window, one leg on the fire escape. The steel guard for that window is hanging by one hinge, bent in the middle. The smoking tube of a shotgun is still pointed at where I was.

"I know you're there, little man," Double-L growls. "I got another barrel loaded."

I can see that.

"Only reason I didn't kill you is that would be bad for business."

No, the only reason you didn't kill me is that I'm wearing a Kevlar cape. But that gives me an opening. "I didn't come here to kill you either, Maddison! You know how I operate. But the guys in that business—you know they're coming."

Double-L is silent for a second. "What the fuck are you talking about, little man?"

"The guys who put out the Odd Jobs contract on you," I say. "I came here because I don't want your kids to get hurt."

"Odd Jobs," Double-L grumbles. He leans further out the window—I can almost hear the fire escape creak—and calls upstairs: "Little Mac! You know anything about Odd Jobs?"

"It's like a website, ain't it?" comes an answer from the top floor. "Diego usually checks that thing."

"Diego's not here," the boss points out. "So tonight it's your job. Check it out."

"He won't find anything," I remind Double-L. "The ad disappeared last week."

"Last week? Damn." His bulk disappears inside the building like a turtle's head pulled into its shell. The window slams down. And I wasn't finished.

"Boss? I didn't find anything," Little Mac calls from the top floor. "Boss?"

From where I hang, I can still hear Double-L's rumble. It's got that trying-to-be-polite tone of someone who has to leave a voicemail. "Cappy, this is Double-L. Twelve-thirty Saturday morning. Get to 207 now. Emergency. Bring in everybody."

More guns in 207? This situation's moving in the wrong direction. I've got to make Double-L listen. His voice is coming out of a dark open window one storey below. I let out a little rope to go lower and swing over—

A face is looking out at me through the window guard. The young woman's face, tired and scared. She's still got her baby in her arms, the bottle on the sill beside her.

"I won't hurt you," I say without thinking.

"I know," she answers. I guess that was the right thing to say.

The door on the other side of the bedroom opens into a den where Double-L is pacing, phone to his ear. "Diego, this is Double-L. I need _all_ my captains here. Now. That Robin kid says someone's gunning for me."

"Is that true?" asks the woman.

"Uh-huh," I say, watching Double-L through the dark room over her shoulder. "I want to tell him to move the kids out for a while."

"He won't do that."

"But they might get hurt. _You_ might get hurt."

She shrugs, and the baby wriggles without opening its eyes. "He still won't send us away. He says his family makes him safe. He says even killers slow down when they see kids."

But the worst of them don't stop. Double-L thinks he's a family man—does he know he's using his babies as shields? I take another glance at him—still on the phone. "I don't care _who_ gave you the night off! Get over here! And bring your brother!"

"Look," I tell the woman. "Can you get out on your own if there's trouble?"

She blinks. But only once. Deep down, she's thought about this before. "Yeah, I think so. And I can carry Kaysha," she says, cuddling the baby. "But some of the ladies, they have four, five kids."

"Can you all get organized? Can you make plans together?"

Now her eyes grow wide. "You'll have to talk to Francee. She's on four." She nods her head up to the floor above. "She was Lloyd's first, and she's kind of an auntie for all us girls."

So Aunt Francee's the only chance of getting Double-L's kids out of the way of Double-L's hunters? I look at the building above me. "Which window?"

•••

It takes ten minutes to wake up Francee, and another five to apologize. She gives me holy hell. Funny thing is, she's only about ten years older than me. Once Francee calms down, she gets what I tell her right away. "So you all have to be ready to leave anytime," I say.

"We can be," she says, nodding. "Back stairs go righ' down to the g'rage. We—"

A black SUV squeals up to the sidewalk, and three men jump out, carrying guns.

"Aw, crud." We're not even close to ready. Maybe I could draw them away—

"Calm down," Francee says, peering down at the sidewalk. "Them's jus' the Ramirez brothers, an' one of they cousins. Part of Diego's crew. Lloyd's callin' _ever'one_ in."

Someone opens the front door to 207, and the three crew members slip in. Just what this situation needs, I think. Even more crossfire.

Francee's not fazed by the sight of those guns. She just goes back to what she was saying: "I can tell the girls to have a bag packed for ever' kid in they rooms."

"No, you won't have time to grab those," I say.

"Okay, we'll store a couple bags down in the g'rage."

"Take cash. You can buy clothes and diapers once you're—"

Two more guys come around the corner, running stiffly—the way men with pistols in their waistbands have to run. I look at Francee.

"Lynk an' Jerry Ray," she says.

They disappear through the front door, too.

"Lloyd'll be holed up on five with his automatics," Francee tells me, as if she's explaining what she'll cook for breakfast tomorrow. "So he won' see us leavin'. Otherwise, he'd blow his top, try an' stop us."

"Okay," I say. "I'll do my best to find out when—"

A silver Chevy rolls silently up to the sidewalk.

"Hmm," says Francee. "That one I don' know."

Uh-oh.

Out jumps a man in orange and blue body armor, full mask, one eye—Deathstroke.

•••

Slade Wilson? This job is bigger than I thought. Or he needs money.

He plants one hand on the hood of the car—probably stolen, untraceable—and vaults all the way over it to the sidewalk. His weapons waver on his shoulders like wings.

"Get everyone out now," I tell Francee. "I'll give you as much time as I can."

I push off from the wall and let the rope zip through my gloves as I slide toward the front stoop. I land in a crouch in front of the door. Wilson stops, surprised.

"You took an awfully small job," I tell him. "Business must be slow."

He shrugs one broad shoulder. "Business is business. Now get out of the way."

"Nope," I say. "Justice and fairness and protecting the innocent and all that."

Wilson points his firestaff. I swirl my cape in front of my chest, not that it could do much good against what he can blast at me.

"I'm not here for any 'innocents'," Wilson says.

"I don't want them caught in the crossfire." I'm hoping that Francee's cleared out her floor by now, and is moving down to three.

"There won't be any crossfire. Now stand aside, or I'll kill you." Wilson doesn't sound happy about that. But he doesn't sound sad, either. It might be time to listen.

Instead, I keep talking. When Wilson's in his right mind, I know he's all business. So I say, "I'll give you three reasons why killing me's a bad proposition. One!" I spoke fast so he wouldn't have time to object, but now I'm not sure what I have to say. I keep winging it. "You kill me, and you know _he'll_ find out. You know _he'll_ come after you, and, uh, so will a bunch of other people."

"He comes after the Joker all the time," says Wilson, "and the Joker's still around."

"Two! You know I'm worth a lot more than Double-L. And I'm going to appreciate. In five years, my price could be close to Nightwing's level. But if you kill me now, you'll never get that contract, and no one will even pay you today."

I can see Wilson consider that.

"Three!" I whip out my staff from under the cape and spring at him, swinging. I never had a number three. I just wanted an extra half-second.

Wilson's as quick as everyone says. As my boot hits his gut, his sword is moving. It slices my staff in two.

I anticipated that. I swipe one half at his left knee, the other at his one eye. Two solid hits.

Then something I didn't anticipate smacks the back of my head. I sprawl across the stoop, crumple against the stone balustrade. My head's showing me fireworks.

But at least my head's still attached. Wilson hit me with the flat of his sword, not the blade. He's not using lethal force. Not yet.

He's marching up the steps to the door. I dig a stun grenade from my belt and aim for the air in front of him.

Wilson has his pistol out as the grenade leaves my hand. He shoots and hits it in midair before it comes close to him.

Which means it's still close to me. I get blasted down to the sidewalk, head ringing. My radio earpiece saves the hearing in my left ear, but it's shattered. No more calls from Oracle.

I can hear voices from the building. Kids' voices—sleepy, crying, asking questions. Mothers' voices, pushing them on. Francee calling, "Move, girls! Move!" I need to delay Wilson a couple minutes more—without getting him too angry.

He's at the door. He'll need another minute at least to pick the lock—no, he's got a key. How does he have a key?

I heave myself onto my knees, ignoring the pain everywhere else, and pull out a batarang on a cord. I whirl the line over my head, whip it out to wrap around his legs.

In one motion, Wilson leaps over the line, grabs the batarang, and yanks. Just when I planned to be pulling his ankles out from under him, he's dragging me up the steps.

And then my face is pushed against the stone, and my arms are behind me, and my legs are hogtied to my wrists.

"I told you to stand aside," Wilson says. He's not even breathing hard.

And then he's gone. I hear the front door slowly swing closed behind him and click shut.

Shit. Shit shit shit.

•••

I wriggle, testing how well Wilson knows his knots. Very well, of course. And my cape's caught between my hands and my belt, so I can't pop any blades and cut myself loose.

Men shout, and there's a volley of shots in the front hallway. The bulletproof glass of the door absorbs a couple of rounds. Wilson fires his staff, and those shots stop.

I strain to hear the kids. The mothers. Nothing. A garage door rumbles open around the west side of the building. Three vans roar out of an alley. They tear down the street in front of me. Lots of heads inside. The last one has a flap of pink blanket caught in the back door.

There's another burst of gunfire inside the building, more blasts from Wilson's weapons, more screams from men—but only from men. Wilson must be working his way up the stairs.

I rub at the cape with my fingertips. It moves a fraction of an inch. I do it again. Another fraction. After twenty minutes of doing that, I'll be able to reach my belt. Can Double-L keep Wilson busy that long?

I get two minutes before a Hyundai brakes at the curb. Three guys jump out. The nearest one has a big gap in his front teeth—Cappy Joe. He finally got Double-L's message.

But these three don't run into the building. They look up at the windows. They listen to the shots, crashes, yells. And I realize who posted the contract on Odd Jobs.

"Looking good," says Cappy.

"I told you he was worth doublin' the price," says another.

"The job's not done yet, Diego," grumbles the third.

"Come on!" Diego answers. "You think anyone else could get up to Double-L's floor? He's worth every grand. And tomorrow, we start payin' ourselves back."

"We'd better," says Cappy. "I want my damn teeth back."

There are shots from an automatic, then a blast from a shotgun, then nothing.

I'm lying still, trying to look like a sack of garbage someone left out on the stoop. That shouldn't be hard since I already feel like one.

But the third guy spots me. "Hey. It's that Robin kid."

"No shit?"

I go back to wriggling and clawing at the cape. I have to get loose. Come on, come on.

The captains move toward me. "Someone tied him up."

"For us?" says Cappy. "They shouldn't have."

"You know," says Diego. "We take him out, our business starts earnin' even more."

There's an explosion high above, and window glass tinkles onto the sidewalk. I see my jumpline flopping in the air, and then two orange leather boots land beside my head. The captains stop at the bottom of the steps and stare.

"Stand back," says Wilson. He grabs a hunk of my cape near the neck and hauls me up on my knees. I didn't think I could be more uncomfortable, but I am. "This one's not part of our contract."

"We're rewritin' the contract," says Diego.

"That's not how I do business," Wilson tells him.

"Take him out now, and in one month we'll pay you double what we've already paid."

"You have no idea what this one's worth," Wilson says.

"Then we'll get a bargain by doin' it ourselves," Diego answers. Cappy and the third captain haul out their pistols.

Before the first shots sound, Wilson tosses me over the side of the stoop. I land on a pile of garbage cans—PRANG!—and bounce once for extra pain in the ribs.

Behind me I hear more gunfire. But it's muffled. My head's stuck inside one can, my face deep in a squishy plastic bag. I can't breathe, can't move. Are the captains going to get that bargain after all?

•••

No, I tell myself. This is not the way Robin goes out. Robin does not smother in a garbage can. I flex my body, pitching myself forward and back, forward and back. The metal can shifts, tilts, topples onto the sidewalk, spilling me and an apartment building's worth of leftover pizza, dust bunnies, and baby wipes.

My elbow's still bleeding, my ear's still ringing, and my ribs ache. But at least my cape's no longer blocking my belt. With numb fingers, I fumble for the compartment with the rasp and start working on the cord around my wrists and ankles. Three minutes later, I can stand. Not the best standing I ever did, but good enough.

I peek back over the stone balustrade. There are three guys sliced up on the sidewalk. Wilson took their Hyundai. His Chevy is on fire. I can hear a few groans from inside 207, but no children crying. The rest of the street is quiet. No sirens on their way—but then this is Blüdhaven. All the neighbors are minding their own business.

I stumble west toward the nest, pulling my backup radio out of my belt. "Oracle?"

"Robin! You—"

"I'm okay."

"Canary's coming for you," Barbara says. "ETA...eighteen seconds."

As soon as she says that, I hear a motorcycle turning off Hamilton. And I realize how grateful I am for a ride home. Dinah weaves her bike around the burning car and the bodies and pulls up beside me.

"I got him," she says into her radio. "He looks like shit. But you should see all the other guys."

"That was Deathstroke's work," I tell Dinah, gingerly lifting my leg over the back of her seat. "He took out Double-L and half his crew. And then he took out the other half."

"Here's something that should interest you, Robin," says Barbara. "The Marriott reservations system says eight women and thirty-one kids just checked into the hotel in downtown Blüdhaven, paying cash for the whole penthouse floor."

"So it's over," I say, letting myself sag against Dinah's back.

"End of a bad day?" she asks as she guns her motor.

"Nope. End of a good one."


End file.
